“The Double X Solution”
Kristof and WuDunn explain, “Women are indeed a linchpin of the region’s development strategy. Economists who scrutinized East Asia’s success noted a common pattern. These countries took young women who previously had contributed negligibly to gross national product (GNP) and injected them into the formal economy hugely increasing the labor force…In a nod to the female chromosomes; it could also be called ‘the double X solution.” Evidently, empowered women can subsidize an economy’s output substantially. Discrimination of women and denying them empowerment opportunities reduces the output of an economy. Accordingly, it is imperative for countries to tap the potential which the women have so that they can increase their GDPs.
AIDS
Kristof and WuDunn acknowledge, “The reality is that past efforts to assist girls have sometimes backfired. In 1993, Senator Tom Harkin wanted to help Bangladeshi girls labouring in sweatshops, so he introduced legislation that would have banned imports wade by workers under the age of fourteen. Bangladeshi factories promptly fired tens of thousands of these young girls, and many of them ended up in brothels and presumably now dead of AIDS.” Poverty makes girls vulnerable, hence; they resort to sex trade to meet their needs. At the brothels they are exposed to AIDS considering that most clients would not want to utilize condoms. Evidently, laboring in sweatshops is better than working in a brothel.
